Epistemology: Meta-Cognition

A sense of meta-cognition is missing in people today. Students are not trained to be aware of what they are thinking or why they are thinking the way they are. My criticism of poorly understood or practiced Christianity is not intended to trick students into thinking I dislike Christianity or think Christianity is wrong. It is a modeling technique I use to show students the benefits and necessities of being self-aware. I know too many Christians who assume that by simply attaching the word “Christian” to their personality they are automatically right in how they see reality and justified in how they treat others. Christianity is not a possession or a skill set. It is not test of worthiness. It is not a manual or a book that we follow in order to earn salvation. Christianity is a relationship with God characterized by humility and unity, Agape. To be Christian requires, every day, a certain awareness or meta-cognition of how well we are acquiescing to that Agapic image and likeness.

            As I understand Christianity, both episteme and phronesis are need in order to respond to the Universal Vocation to Holiness, living out the image and likeness of God. I imagine all of us in the Pit together. The darkness and the misery separates us and makes it hard for us to look at each other for what we Truly are; it makes it difficult to Love and the be Loved. But if we are created in the image and likeness of a transcendent God, and if we are called to Love and to be Loved as God is, and if we are materially and transcendently True, ourselves, then that image and likeness must be made manifest both materially and transcendently. That is, we must Love God and we must Love everyone else in the Pit with us. As my student suggested earlier, Sacramental vision is thinking of episteme as pointing to phronesis, and phronesis is knowledge of the Authentic Self.

(Thinking about thinking about sleeping)